The Internet saves a same-sex wedding from Hurricane Sandy

Thanks to Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson and Foursquare engineer/wedding officiant Anoop Ranganath, two women were able to get married even after Hurricane Sandy closed the City Clerk's Office.

When a hurricane’s all but washed out your friends’ hopes of getting married, turning to the Internet can solve their problems.

During a trip to New York City this week, two California women planned to marry since they could not do so in their home state. Kelly and Rosa obtained a marriage license from the Clerk’s Office Monday.

Due to NYC’s 24-hour waiting period before a couple can marry, Kelly and Rosa planned to return to the office for the ceremony on Tuesday. However, the effects of Hurricane Sandy caused the office to shut down, disrupting those plans.

With time running out before their flight back to California Thursday, they were resigned to heading home without tying the knot.

That was until their friend, Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson, stepped in to help. He tweeted a plea for a marriage officiant to help out:

Among those who replied to Dickerson’s plea was Anoop Ranganath, who is a registered wedding officiant in the city and had presided over two ceremonies.

Ranganath, Foursquare’s lead iPhone engineer, told the Daily Dot he wasn’t actually following Dickerson on Twitter at the time. Instead, he spotted a retweet from a former coworker and immediately offered his services: “It's such a great story! How could I not?”

Dickerson and Ranganath tweeted back and forth, and Ranganath said he’d be able to make it to the Kelly and Rosa’s hotel within 15 minutes. Sandy had forced Foursquare’s Soho HQ office to shut down, and he was working at a Midtown location just a few minutes away.

Dickerson noted that by the time he and Ranganath spoke by phone, Ranganath was already on his way. The plan was to hold the wedding at Central Park, though it was closed due to the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Instead, he married the couple at Columbus Circle.

Ranganath and the couple asked a lady sitting on a park bench, who coincidentally was on vacation with her husband to celebrate their one-year anniversary after marrying in the city last year, to act as a witness.

In total, it took just 75 minutes from Dickerson tweeting for help to him receiving photos of the newly married couple. “The whole thing only took 45 minutes of my time,” Ranganath wrote via email. “It was a pleasure and an honor.”

Dickerson, who did not attend the wedding himself (it wasn’t exactly easy to get around NYC this week), received several leads on finding a wedding official, even after Ranganath answered the call. He had only one possible response: “THANKS, INTERNET.”

Ranganath said that after the wedding, the women had plans for a “nice dinner and a Broadway show.” Whatever happens, thanks to him, they’re unlikely to ever forget their wedding day.

Hurricane Sandy's long arms of destruction have finally moved inland, but New York City is still reeling. Millions are without power. Flood waters have yet to recede, and another high tide looms. But if you’re prone to seeing omens in Mother Nature, she’s left a hopeful sign over lower Manhattan this morning: a double rainbow, confirmed via dozens of images on Twitter and other social media sites.